ON DVD PUSS IN BOOTS IS THE CAT’S MEOW

As expected, the DVD sales chart was dominated last week by the debut of DreamWorks Animation’s Puss in Boots. Nielsen VideoScan First Alert observed that the movie, a prequel to Shrek, earned twice as much as the No. 2 DVD finisher, Universal’s Tower Heist and the No. 3 finisher, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — […]

NEW YEAR’S EVE AIN’T NO VALENTINE’S DAY

Last February, Sony’s Valentine’s Day, featuring a raft of stars, opened to poor reviews and a solid $56.3 million. Last weekend, New Year’s Eve, featuring a raft of stars, opened to poor reviews and a measly $13.01 million. It is a measure of how poorly the box office performed overall that New Year’s Eve finished […]

NEW YEAR’S EVE BALL FALLS WITH A THUD

Just when you thought the box office couldn’t get any worse than it got last weekend, it got worse. After recording its lowest gross of the year last week, it set a new low of $74 million, down nearly 9 percent from last weekend and the smallest total since September 2008. Then, however, it featured […]

BOX OFFICE: WORST WEEKEND OF THE YEAR

The weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday lived up to its reputation as a lowpoint of the year at the box office. But this one was even lower than usual, worse even than the weekend after the Labor Day holiday, before kids return to school. The total box office was down 6 percent from the same […]

PIRATES DOWNLOADING FLOPS, IGNORING HITS

Suggesting that those who download pirated movies from BitTorrent sites are more interested in looking at films that they’ve missed or wouldn’t otherwise pay money for, TorrentFreak’s list of the 10 most pirated movies for this week puts The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1, at No. 6 — up from No. 7 the […]

BREAKING DAWN REMAINS BRIGHT OVERSEAS

Overseas, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 remained the No. 1 film as it collected about $40.2 million in 73 countries, to bring its foreign total to $341 million and its worldwide total to $588.3 million. Puss in Boots came in second, earning an estimated $23 million in 26 countries. It had plenty […]

MUPPETS FAIL TO BREAK BREAKING DAWN‘S HOLD ON FIRST PLACE (Updated)

Where’s Oscar the Grouch when you need him? Many box-office forecasters had predicted that this would be the weekend when Disney’s The Muppets took over first place from Summit Entertainment’s The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1. After all, they reasoned, Disney’s Tangled brought the last Harry Potter movie down over the same weekend […]

NO NEW MOVIES TO OPEN WIDE THIS WEEKEND

Given that the weekend after the Thanksgiving holiday is notoriously lame at the box office, studios this year have tossed in the towel: not one of them is opening a movie wide. Some have elected to widen a few films already in release and bring back a few Oscar contenders that were originally released earlier […]

THANKSGIVING BOX OFFICE DOWN

Moviegoers apparently didn’t get the message that they were supposed to lift the box office to a new Thanksgiving Day record over the weekend. To be sure, they turned out in force, but not in the numbers that pundits had forecast. As everyone had expected, the second week of The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — […]

DAWN FAR FROM DEAD IN SECOND WEEK

There was still plenty of life in the undead over the Thanksgiving holiday, illustrated by the estimated $62.3 million that The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part 1 brought in over the five-day period. The romvamp tale collected about $42 million over the three-day weekend (Friday through Sunday). Box office mavens regarded that result as […]

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